Sagar: At a time when kerosene prices are touching the sky after the Centre scrapped the subsidy on the fuel ration last year, in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district, the end of the subsidy has brought down the consumption from 4 lakh liters a month to 12000 liters per month due to the cost escalation. While wheat and rice sell at the rate of Re 1 a kg, the price of kerosene has reached as high as Rs 87 a liter burning a hole in the pockets of the economically destitute who would largely rely on the fuel ration.
At the same time, the ration shop operators are also upset with the end of subsidy and have gradually stopped distributing kerosene. The poor say that kerosene was still needed as much as it was before but they are not able to buy the fuel because of the exponential cost escalation. In April 2021, the government abolished the kerosene subsidy on the ground that people had “stopped using it due to the central government's ambitious Ujjwala scheme” wherein LPG gas cylinders are distributed among the poor.
When the subsidy was abolished by the central government, the price of kerosene was around Rs 22 per liter. But after the subsidy is over, which has now touched Rs 87. Due to the increase of 4 times the price of kerosene in just one year, the poor are finding it difficult to light their Chulha. People say that not every person has a cylinder from the Ujjwala scheme and even if it is, not every person is able to get it filled.